WTT Star Contender: With Feeder title under her belt, Sreeja Akula sets course for Paris 2024

Sreeja Akula didn’t get much time to celebrate winning her first international tournament. As soon as she won the WTT (World Table Tennis) Feeder in Corpus Christi, Texas last Thursday, Akula was packing her bags to make the long journey across the world to Goa where she was to compete in the WTT Star Contender.

The 27-hour journey stretched to an eye-watering 32 hours after a missed connection in Doha. Akula eventually made it just a day before the start of the tournament. If jet lag wasn’t trouble enough, Akula’s first match of the tournament was in the qualification round of the mixed doubles event where she and Snehit Suravajulla were massive underdogs against Singapore’s World No. 27 pairing of Yew En Koen Pang and Xin Ru Wong.

The long travel meant that the scratch pairing of Akula and Suravajulla barely got any time to practise together. “Although we are both from the same club (in Hyderabad) and have the same coach, we’ve never ever played or even practised together. We entered our name only at the last minute for the tournament. Then we got busy playing our singles events. In Goa we only trained together for 15 minutes,” she says.

You’d never have guessed that from the way the Indians played, as they racked up an impressive 11-9, 13-11, 7-11, 11-8 win against the fancied Singaporean pair.

Significant win

The win isn’t without significance for Akula. She’s had her share of success in the mixed pairs event, winning gold alongside Achanta Sharath Kamal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and then partnering Harmeet Desai at the Asian Games. But with Sharath over 40 and Harmeet in his 30s, the 25-year-old Akula is looking towards the future in her partnership with Suravajulla, 23.

“I’d played with Sharath  bhaiyya at the Commonwealth Games and I had played with Harmeet  bhaiyya at the Asian Games. Now, I am trying out my partnership with Snehit. We are looking to see if we can work as a pair for the next Commonwealth and Asian Games,” she says.

While Akula hopes to do well in mixed doubles in Goa, the event isn’t an immediate concern for her. “For the Olympics, I know I don’t have a chance to play in mixed doubles. Most likely it will be Sathiyan and Manika who will go for that. (G Sathiyan and Manika Batra are World No. 10 and will be favourites to qualify by virtue of their ranking, should they not qualify directly through the ITTF World Olympic Qualification Tournament),” she says.

But Akula still hopes to make it to the Paris Olympics. She’s got three chances. She will qualify should India, as a team, makes it to the quarterfinals of the ITTF World Team Championships in Busan next month, through the Asian qualifying tournament in May or through her world ranking as on June 18.

Rankings boost

Her maiden international title at Corpus Christi, Texas will go a long way towards that. The win catapults her to a career-high World No. 66 in the world rankings, leaving her the second-highest-ranked Indian women’s singles player after Manika Batra (World No. 38).

“For doubles we don’t have any chance because I don’t have any ranking in doubles. So, my priority is to do well in the team events. If our individual ranking goes up, our team ranking will also improve. That means that we will get a better seeding and draw at the World Team Championships. We need to reach the quarterfinals to qualify as a team. Last time (in the 2022 edition), we lost out in the pre-quarterfinals to Chinese Taipei. But I think if we get a better seeding, we could do better this time. And even if we don’t qualify, a higher ranking will help me get a better draw in the qualification tournament in May,” she says.

As such, the title at Texas, which included wins over World No. 35 Amy Wang and World No. 46 Lilly Zhang, couldn’t have come at a better time. “This is very good for me because I got my ranking up at the right time,” she says.

It was also a result that Akula was waiting for a while. “After the Commonwealth Games, I think I was struggling at the international level for a little bit. I was qualifying for the main draw but I was just about winning one or two matches. But I’ve been patient. I’ve worked hard and not given up,” says Akula.

She’s worked on her fitness. “I’ve had issues with tennis elbow and my shoulder, and I’ve had to play back-to-back tournaments for the last couple of years. I’ve worked a lot on weight training and mobility in the last couple of years because my main focus was on avoiding injuries,” she says. The results she says have started coming through. “It’s shown in the domestic circuit (Akula ended 2023 as the highest ranked domestic player for the fourth straight year). But now it’s starting to show in the international circuit as well,” she says.

International breakthrough

While she has her maiden win, Akula isn’t satisfied just yet. “In domestic competitions, I am satisfied, but in international, there’s scope for improvement. It’s great that I’ve won a Feeder title but I want to do well in the Contender and Star Contender events as well,” she says.

Akula has listed specific areas she wants to improve on. “I think mentally I need to get even stronger against top Chinese and Japanese players. I also want to improve my reflexes. The Asian players are very quick so I am working to improve the quickness of my feet. I’m also looking to improve on my variations. I used a pimpled rubber on my backhand but that’s just defensive. I can’t attack with that. So, I’m trying to learn different variations, like flipping the blade, like Manika does, so the opponent doesn’t get used to my returns,” she says.

Though these skills are still a work in progress, Akula believes she could display some of them in Goa. While she still has to win another match to enter the main draw in the mixed doubles event, she’s part of the women’s singles main draw. Having caused a major upset with her very first match she’s hoping to pull off a few more. “My goal is just to play my best and make a number of upsets. In comparison to feeders, the competition here is very tough and the standard is very high so how I do also depends on the draw. But I want to make a good number of upsets,” she says.